In New York, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews hit for a double and four points on Tuesday night in a 7-3 win over the humiliated Rangers.
The Maple Leafs scored four in the first and three in the third.
Mitchell Marner also scored a pair of goals for the Leafs.
Toronto improved to Maple Leafs 15-6-5.
Martin Jones made 28 saves in his first in the win.
Blake Wheeler had a two-goal night for the Rangers, his first came in the opening stanza to trim a 2-0 deficit to 2-1.
He scored his double in the middle frame, after Mika Zibanejad had hit for a power play, goal to get the Rangers within 4-3 headed to the third.
“This is where you learn about yourself and you learn about what it takes to ultimately continue to be successful,” Wheeler said. “They’re lessons you have to go through throughout the year. I mean, nobody goes through the season unscathed, without having stretches that maybe don’t go their way. I think it’s a great learning opportunity for our team.”
Well, the answer there may not be what anyone wants to know. This was an embarrassment from start to finish.
“Based on the first period, they were better than us,” New York coach Peter Laviolette said. “We didn’t give ourselves the best chance to win tonight.”
The first period was an exhibition of ineptness on the part of the Rangers.
Matthews scored at 3:52 off an odd man break, Conor Timmins pushed the lead to 2-0 at 5:07.
Wheeler’s first came at 5:42.
Calle Jarnkrok moved the advantage to 3-1 for the Leafs at 15:20, and Marner scored 21 seconds later for a 4-1 lead headed to the middle frame.21 seconds later, connecting off a give-and-go with Matthews.
The third period was a bad rendition of a amateur hockey team playing a pro club.
The Rangers were snuffed out.
New York dropped, with a thud, to 19-7-1.,
Marner scored at 1:29 to push the lead to 5-3 for the Leafs.
“We only had one [power play] in the first but ‘Mo’ and I were talking, just try to be open for a high tip there,” Marner said. “We knew it was possibly there. Then in the third you see us talking and we said, ‘Let’s try to look for that again.’ Lucky enough I was able to find a quiet spot. ‘Mo’ with a great shot, I got a piece of it and lucky enough it went in.”
Matthews hit for his double at 17:11 for a 6-3 lead, and David Kampf hit an empty net at 18:33 for the 7-3 final demolition.
“It felt like we were a tired team a lot of the night quite honestly, I didn’t think we had our legs,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “But we were just encouraging and pushing our guys to dig in, move their feet, close and pressure the puck. If we weren’t going to get our chances from that at the very least, we were going to pin them down and keep them far away from our end.
“And then through that we drew some opportunities, had some chances at the net, drew a penalty, which really changed the game with our ability to score as quickly as we did on that power play.”
Igor Shesterkin made 23 saves, and has become less than mediocre this season, absorbing all seven regulation losses for the Rangers, and has surrendered at least four goals in his last three starts.
It’s time for goalie controversy, or maybe not.
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